day
in the garden, her mother asked me in an angry tone why I disliked
Camerino; for I had been at no pains to conceal my feeling about him, and
something had just happened to bring it out. 'I dislike him,' I said,
'because you like him so much.' 'I assure you I don't like him,' she
answered. 'He has all the appearance of being your lover,' I retorted.
It was a brutal speech, certainly, but any other man in my place would
have made it. She took it very strangely; she turned pale, but she was
not indignant. 'How can he be my lover after what he has done?' she
asked. 'What has he done?' She hesitated a good while, then she said:
'He killed my husband.' 'Good heavens!' I cried, 'and you receive him!'
Do you know what she said? She said, '_Che voule_?'"

"Is that all?" asked Stanmer.

"No; she went on to say that Camerino had killed Count Salvi in a duel,
and she admitted that her husband's jealousy had been the occasion of it.
The Count, it appeared, was a monster of jealousy--he had led her a
dreadful life. He himself, meanwhile, had been anything but
irreproachable; he had done a mortal injury to a man of whom he pretended
to be a friend, and this affair had become notorious. The gentleman in
question had demanded satisfaction for his outraged honour; but for some
reason or other (the Countess, to do her justice, did not tell me that
her husband was a coward), he had not as yet obtained it. The duel with
Camerino had come on first; in an access of jealous fury the Count had
struck Camerino in the face; and this outrage, I know not how justly, was
deemed expiable before the other. By an extraordinary arrangement (the
Italians have certainly no sense of fair play) the other man was allowed
to be Camerino's second. The duel was fought with swords, and the Count
received a wound of which, though at first it was not expected to be
fatal, he died on the following day. The matter was hushed up as much as
possible for the sake of the Countess's good name, and so successfully
that it was presently observed that, among the public, the other
gentleman had the credit of having put his blade through M. de Salvi.
This gentleman took a fancy not to contradict the impression, and it was
allowed to subsist. So long as he consented, it was of course in
Camerino's interest not to contradict it, as it left him much more free
to keep up his intimacy with the Countess."

Stanmer had listened to all this with extreme attenti